If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

BNW - Has Science been slowed down

Level 5.
Before BNW, even on a bad day I would finish building the rocket ship before 1935. Only played a few BNW games but in my last one I always felt I was behind in science (you get that feeling) but whenever I checked then demographics I was ahead. When I eventually finished the science victory it was 2020!! and the AI were still miles behind.
In my current game I've reached 1920 and I'm still 5 turns away from building Railroads so a HUGE distance still to go in the tech tree. I'm doing all the sciencey stuff pretty much like I used to but it's still not happening even though I'm winning. Is this other peoples experience? Have they designed it to be like this? Or am I just missing something screamingly obvious?

Yeah, it's a 5% reduction per city. On the other hand, trade routes can grant a little science, although it's really only significant in the early game.

More accurately, each city annexed, puppeted, or founded after the capital will increase the science cost of technologies by 5%. So the Mayan strategy of adopting Messenger of the Gods, spamming cities, and building Pyramids is now much less viable for Science victories.

And a trade route only grants science per technology your partner has that you don't, which is in fact a bad thing if you are going science.

It does overall feel like science has slowed down. Maybe I haven't figure out all the new quirks, but I'm teching more slowly even if the AI isn't. On Emperor, the AI really jumps ahead through the Medieval Era (more like Immortal level), but tends to slow a little afterward. Certainly my science while pursuing a cultural victory is more en par with real world dates than it used to be. In G&K, I'd be in the Renaissance before the 10th century and have broadcast towers in the 1700s even while staying small and cultural. Over-all, I'd say Science has slowed a lot so that you really have to pursue it to be ahead of real-world developments. I'd have to play a few more games and a few more strategies to really know. I'm still trying to learn the new Cultural Victory.

One thing I did notice is that the Patronage policy that gives science from CS is now far more potent than it used to be. I don't know why that is.

Think it might just be because it's more difficult to get a rapid start, without being able to trade for gold, or get it from rivers and oceans. Depending on your past strategy.. For me, by the time I get a few trade routes going, I'm already well behind where I used to be, by the same time. And how quickly a civ gets started tends to have a huge impact in the long run.

The penalty per city is relatively small, I doubt it would account for such a noticeable difference.

Science feels much slower in BnW. Don't know if there are other changes than the 5 % per city penalty, but if you are going wide or semi-wide, that's very noticable. At 5 cities, that's 20 % extra tech cost, which really is noticable. I also notice that I tend to be constantly behind AI up to pretty late game - I'm not sure whether that is caused by the AI getting tech discounts (it does), or whether other factors play a role also (like AI almost inevitably staying at 3 cities or AI being better at forming Research Agreements). I'm overall in favor of slower science, but I do feel the 5 % penalty is too harsh, it's pretty much impossible to go wide now.

Science feels much slower in BnW. Don't know if there are other changes than the 5 % per city penalty, but if you are going wide or semi-wide, that's very noticable. At 5 cities, that's 20 % extra tech cost, which really is noticable. I also notice that I tend to be constantly behind AI up to pretty late game - I'm not sure whether that is caused by the AI getting tech discounts (it does), or whether other factors play a role also (like AI almost inevitably staying at 3 cities or AI being better at forming Research Agreements). I'm overall in favor of slower science, but I do feel the 5 % penalty is too harsh, it's pretty much impossible to go wide now.

The way I do it is to go tradition and stay at 3-4 cities until the late medieval or early renaissance then start to really expand once I get a good happiness surplus. Sending trade caravans with food to the new cities and getting a granary, library and university up in them asap seems to overcome that penalty in a reasonable amount of turns. With the tradition finisher and a food caravan new cities can go from one pop to ten pop pretty quick. Switching trade units to domestic routes doesn't seem to hurt the economy all that bad either since the high pop city connections are providing quite a bit of gold. I can usually get to 10 or so cities by the industrial like that. This way I have a good number of productive cities to pump out troops when ideologies kick in and the AI starts to go schizo.

I guess this is a hybrid tall wide strategy but it's been keeping me well ahead of the AI on King while going wide and I'm pretty sure it'll work when I go back to emperor. I think the old strategy of ICSing 10 cities in the first 100 turns has gone the way of the dinosaur, at least imo. I suppose in the long term it would pay off since eventually those cities will overcome that 5% increase in costs but it'll really hurt early on. I suppose this is what we got when we asked them to balance tall and wide strategies.

This another reason why I think tradition is passing liberty in usefulness at least imo. I used to think the trees were pretty balanced and used them both just about as much as each other. Inhibiting city spam makes collective rule less powerful. Aristocracy can create just about as much happiness as meritocracy in the long run and the happiness from monarchy is just icing on the cake. Oligarchy, Legalism and Monarchy can really help with gold in the early game before trade kicks in. Oligarchy is actually better wide than tall. The free GP from the liberty tree doesn't truly make up for the fact that tradition civs will almost always produce more GPs than a liberty civ in the long run. Republic, citizenship and representation are the best parts of the tree but I don't think they keep the two trees balanced. Maybe it's just my playstyle making it seem this way. I'm sure this post will inspire some one to go tell me all the benefits of liberty. Like Alcibiades said though a 20% increase in costs for a 5 city civ is a pretty hefty penalty to overcome but it's actually easier to overcome with tradition in my opinion.

Typing this up makes me think the 5% increase in costs is a result of the addition of the domestic trade routes. New cities can grow really fast now, that had to be balanced somehow. I suddenly have the urge to play India again. They're going to be pretty awesome with the domestic routes.

Personally, I think that the Library should be given its Scientist specialist back (and a Great Work slot) so that civs can make a conscious effort to focus on science early in the game. Scientific advancement should be slower (IMO) than real-world advancement unless you specifically focus on it.

I was going to start this thread myself as I wasn't sure if science was significantly slowed down or if I just hadn't fully adapted to the new game mechanics so I'm glad I'm not the only one finding science much slower in BNW. I do like the fact that science costs more per city as it was stupid seeing the AI teching well despite having a load of useless, undeveloped cities and in G&K it was possible to advance too quickly but I feel the cost is currently being pushed up to high.

Well I'm nearly at the end of my current game and I'm already past 2020 and I still have about 8 turns to go to finish the Tech for the last part of my ship. Normally my science would be between 900 and 1200 in the late 19th/early 20th century. I still dont think Ive broken 750 even though I'm well into the 21st. Saving a load of Scientists for the end of game push is a lot less effective than it used to be.

Does anyone else also find that civs are far more likely to play culturally rather then science based? I'm finding the Arts Funding resolution is getting passed all the time in the WC but have yet to see the Science Funding resolution get passed. Even science civs such as Babylon have been preferring to go with Arts funding when Science funding perfectly matches their ability.

Does anyone else also find that civs are far more likely to play culturally rather then science based? I'm finding the Arts Funding resolution is getting passed all the time in the WC but have yet to see the Science Funding resolution get passed. Even science civs such as Babylon have been preferring to go with Arts funding when Science funding perfectly matches their ability.

I've noticed it too. Maybe one or two will want science funding and all the rest want arts. I wonder if they're predisposed to want art any time they're not actually going for an SV since it'll slow down civs that are and the extra culture and tourism help protect them from influence and protects their ideology not to mention getting SoPols faster. Basically arts funding helps all the VCs other than science and that's why they want it more often. Just my guess.

Thanks for letting me know I'm not crazy. I always go wide and I prefer science victory. The weird thing is that not only has science gotten harder, but cultural victories seem to have gotten easier. A lot easier.

Yes, a lot slower than I'm used to. In my current game it's 2010 and only 3 of us (out of 9) have reached the atomic era so far. I'm the only one with WWII bombers so far! This is on Prince and Quick speed. I'm actually playing with all victory conditions turned off. I read some where that it is an interesting way to play so this is my 3rd time trying it. As I tend to go wide and dominate it works just fine for me as I learn the ins and outs of BNW.

Thanks for letting me know I'm not crazy. I always go wide and I prefer science victory. The weird thing is that not only has science gotten harder, but cultural victories seem to have gotten easier. A lot easier.

Yes, that and the fact that Diplomatic Victory voting starts automatically once the world enters Atomic Era, and you need to go well into Information era to win Science Victory, makes Science Victory pretty much only something you fall back on if nobody has managed to do either Diplomatic or Cultural before that.

I can confirm the suspicions that Science has gotten slower. Although, Culture seems slower as well, so I wonder if the game as a whole just slowed down.

Just like pre-BNW, I find early Science relatively easy, but post-Industrial Science slows to a crawl (which to me, is the opposite of how Culture works). But unlike pre-BNW, Science just seems like a rather difficult task overall.

I haven't looked into the details, no, and I didn't play Civ 5 for over half a year prior to BNW's release, but I definitely get the impression the late game in particular has been slowed down a *lot*. It looks to me like they significantly raised late-game tech costs, but I'm not sure.

I don't think the 5% science penalty per city is too bad - the only case where new cities are actually going to slow you down for a long time is when you have a super-capital that is churning out hundreds of beakers each turn. New cities will quickly grow to become a net gain. Together with social policy costs increasing by less (since G&K), the 'wide' style is still very possible. Still, it of course is a nerf to going wide, and it can certainly feel like a bit much that they're putting so many artificial roadblocks & rules in the way of the player to prevent him from expanding.

Nah, that's just a separate problem that isn't really new with BNW. They've made warmongering highly disadvantageous since day 1 with the laughable 'warmongering menace' model - as if international diplomacy had ever revolved around denouncing rogue states. If anything, the nerf to science actually encourages going to war rather than founding new cities since you then ensure you add only well-developed cities to your empire.

We need the penalties for warmongering severely reduced. Having warmonger hate decay ten times as fast would be a good start.

It looks like BNW was a PACIFIST DLC. It discourages war and conquest. Some of us warmongers are badly disappointed. Science is just one of the many casualties.

My first game on BNW was a warmongering one. I haven't found war to be harder. Yeah, everyone will hate you. So what? You time the warfare correctly, and you can have more gold than anyone else without any trade routes, and outbuy them.

However, I do believe that science has been made the hardest victory condition, which is sad cuz I always found it fun.

I can confirm the suspicions that Science has gotten slower. Although, Culture seems slower as well, so I wonder if the game as a whole just slowed down.

Just like pre-BNW, I find early Science relatively easy, but post-Industrial Science slows to a crawl (which to me, is the opposite of how Culture works). But unlike pre-BNW, Science just seems like a rather difficult task overall.

No, culture has become easier, at least for me. In one game, I accidentally won a culture victory when I was going for a science victory. Try for a culture victory again, but this time go wide. See how that goes.

I can confirm the suspicions that Science has gotten slower. Although, Culture seems slower as well, so I wonder if the game as a whole just slowed down.

Just like pre-BNW, I find early Science relatively easy, but post-Industrial Science slows to a crawl (which to me, is the opposite of how Culture works). But unlike pre-BNW, Science just seems like a rather difficult task overall.

Culture is slower very early on as with the exception of the monument, culture buildings only have +1 culture but it soon picks up again. Once you start building guilds and using their specialists it seems to be just as quick to me. And the later in the game you get and the more great works you have, it seems to be a lot quicker. I can churn out policies quicker in BNW then I could prior to the expansion.

I guess beelining Writers guild, and putting it in a city (not your capital) where you can affort to keep the two specialists will help you out with that. Also, Parthenon would be your new best friend.

I guess beelining Writers guild, and putting it in a city (not your capital) where you can affort to keep the two specialists will help you out with that. Also, Parthenon would be your new best friend.

Totally agree with this. Ive made it a point to put the different guilds into different cities so I can always afford to work them. It also helps a lot with border growth. Those specialists are a major boost to culture.